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So I was reading A thread on this very sub forum about cheaters, and people brought up opponents making up magic items on the spot. my initial thought was "Ask to see it on his list?" but then a niggling little observation that has been making a mess in the recess of my mind decided to remind me of it's existence.

And that observation is that people just dont seem to bother writing lists anymore.

Maybe it's just where I game (A GW and a FLGS respectively). I hope it is. Now, I'm no saint. In a game with a friend we will often chop and change our lists before games to try something new, and we will do it due to knowing the other guy wont cheat. But not having one at all against strangers/people I don't know well? it's always struck as a bit rude.

Nonetheless, it seems more and more gamers will simply whip out a phone and make up a list, sometimes while the other guy is unpacking his stuff. It's alot more prevelent in GW's, maybe because table space is always more limited in those places and people often find themselves playing doubles, and having to halve there points in a hurry. But still, it takes all of 10 minutes 10 write down what they are doing on the phones, so again, I'm confused.

Seriously, how do people cope without a list? It's also the only way I can ever remember all the stuff my Night goblin has at any given time.

I haven't had that much of a problem with it myself.

I have noticed that people don't always choose their magic lore for fantasy until before the game. Which always annoys me.

I keep all my lists on my phone these Days, more specifically on Google drive. I'll write up lists on spreadsheets... ususally while at work, or at home, or whatever, for all the point values I generally will find myself playing at. Then when I get to a game store, I can just pull up my Google Drive, and there is my list!

It sure beats printing up paper copies or writing things out by hand. And if anybody has any questions I can open the spreadsheet on my phone.

 akaean wrote:
I keep all my lists on my phone these Days, more specifically on Google drive. I'll write up lists on spreadsheets... ususally while at work, or at home, or whatever, for all the point values I generally will find myself playing at. Then when I get to a game store, I can just pull up my Google Drive, and there is my list!

It sure beats printing up paper copies or writing things out by hand. And if anybody has any questions I can open the spreadsheet on my phone.

See, thats fine. You actually have a list to had. My issue is not with the dtorage medium, but with people not even having one.

 Ma55ter_fett wrote:
I haven't had that much of a problem with it myself.

I have noticed that people don't always choose their magic lore for fantasy until before the game. Which always annoys me.

That is my no1 pet peave

I would not play anybody that did not have an army list. Period, end of story. The army list would need to be complete, including lore choice.

I am also very leery of army lists created in formats other then Army Builder (I do not have enough experience with Quartermaster yet). They are frequently wrong/illegal.

Before my post gets a bunch of anti AB feedback, I have enough experience to know this is correct. I run a 100+ person tournament. We check every list for legality. Fully a third of those submitted in an excel format are illegal. 15-20% of those on a word doc are illegal. Only 1-2% of those on an AB file are illegal. This has been consistent 4 years in a row.

The most common errors.

-Points for a unit do not add up correctly.
-min core not met.
-items taken by a prohibited character (an orc taking a goblin only item for example).
-Multiple enchanted, arcane, or talismans on a single character.

If handed an excel spreadsheet, I have to totally take it on faith that the individual has gotten all this correct or I need to borrow his book and check it all. I would rather be handed an army list created by third party software. If there is an error, I would feel that it was not my opponents fault. If I learn that an opponent’s list was illegal after wards and they used a spread sheet, there would at least be doubt on whether it was an honest mistake or not.

Don’t get me started on the one or two people who show up with a different list then they submitted (yes, we catch that as well). Happens every year.

Not having your army list/s ready to play is even worse than list tailorers imho...
Mainly because not only do I now have to wait at least 10-15min for my lazy opponent to write-up a list, but 9 times out of 10, it turns into a tailored list as well!

Nowadays when I go to the LGS, I'm basically to the point that my personal rule of thumb is "if you're too lazy to have your list ready ahead of time like a normal respectable opponent, then I'm too lazy to wait around for you to get one made-up."

There's always other opponents who at least have a good decency to come to the store properly prepared with a list/s all ready to go!

Because all comer lists are exactly that... all comer lists.

When your opponent see's you breaking out lets say TK, he will right a list that he thinks is the perfect counter to what you have brought.

Phone lists are fine, i know a few people that will rock a list for every army you can face, its up to the individual.

I run a simple all comers list if i game at all, or doing a simple drop in and play.

Experiment 626 wrote:
Not having your army list/s ready to play is even worse than list tailorers imho...
Mainly because not only do I now have to wait at least 10-15min for my lazy opponent to write-up a list, but 9 times out of 10, it turns into a tailored list as well!

Nowadays when I go to the LGS, I'm basically to the point that my personal rule of thumb is "if you're too lazy to have your list ready ahead of time like a normal respectable opponent, then I'm too lazy to wait around for you to get one made-up."

There's always other opponents who at least have a good decency to come to the store properly prepared with a list/s all ready to go!

At the same time if they are willing to quickly write up a list in army builder(or generally quartermaster) to match a point level they may not have been expecting then I would cut them some slack, especially if they try not to make a,counter list.

As long as there is an army list of some shape and form before you turn up to fight, I'm happy as larry.

I use a pencil and paper and a calculator.
My list is not prone to battery failure.

Really? tougth it was common to play with OPEN lists.

atleast at the locals ive been to.

 TheAvengingKnee wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Not having your army list/s ready to play is even worse than list tailorers imho...
Mainly because not only do I now have to wait at least 10-15min for my lazy opponent to write-up a list, but 9 times out of 10, it turns into a tailored list as well!

Nowadays when I go to the LGS, I'm basically to the point that my personal rule of thumb is "if you're too lazy to have your list ready ahead of time like a normal respectable opponent, then I'm too lazy to wait around for you to get one made-up."

There's always other opponents who at least have a good decency to come to the store properly prepared with a list/s all ready to go!

At the same time if they are willing to quickly write up a list in army builder(or generally quartermaster) to match a point level they may not have been expecting then I would cut them some slack, especially if they try not to make a,counter list.

As long as they had a pre-made list then sure, I'll wait since odds are that I'm the likely problem in this case, as I likely have a smaller/larger army list than they were prepared for.

My gripe is with a$$hats who simply refuse to ever bring a pre-made list/s so that they can then try and on-the-spot counter your army as they see it come out of the case...
For example, the High Elf player who nowadays waits to see how many magical attacks are likely in your army so they can build the best suited BotWD unit to counter you, or the Empire player who waits to see what your army's average armour save is before deciding on what kind of gunline to run.

Those types can go burn in a car fire and die because all they do is poison the gaming experience for everyone by being obnoxious WAAC's donkeycaves.

I would agree, I bring a list for as many of the current point values that are played at My FLGS possible. Why do some people not show up prepared, For the most part If you have been to a Playing Location more than a few times you know what the average points games are going to be. So bring a list or two for those point levels and especially when we have set up a game at a certain point level ahead of time you should arrive ready to play at that level. It really gets on my nerves when we agree a head of time that we are going to play at X point value. Then you show up and are like well I need 10 minutes to prepare. If we have preset a time and point value why did you not have a list ready when you show up? I spend valuable time before I get to the store to make sure I have lists, and all the models I would need ready to play at 4 or 5 point values, when someone shows up an says what did you bring, okay give me a minute to write up my list it gets one my nerves. But it is all the better when I manage to table that tailored list with my all comers list.

If it is a random game I can understand having to rework a list fit a different point value or player skill, I have had to do that from time to time. If I am playing a relative new person I will try and edit my lists to take some of the tricks out of it, It is not fair to unleash a fully built and tested army against someone who is still learning the game. I had this happen the other night, I expected to play one person with a tournament prep list, but when he did not show, I ended up playing someone who only had 2 or 3 games under their belt. Their army list was no match for mine. A tooled up Ogres Vs a this is what I have Wood Elves army. I had only brought the stuff I needed for the tooled list, because I expected to test things out. Before the game even started I had to explain that I was sorry for what was going to happen, and that there was a 95% chance I was going to give that person a beat down. I felt really bad doing it. But as we where the only two people in the store that night it is what it is, I will have to say that I did do my best to help the new person, advising said person when they were making mistakes, trying to help them stay out of traps. If I had had anything else with me, I would have changed up what I was fielding.

Basically people need to take more responsibility and come prepared.

I actually agree in my area we generally play 2000-2500 so I pre-write my list at work and print it out and keep a copy on my phone. (What i'm scatterbrained i lose stuff easily.) I play against people who mainly have prewritten lists it seems to make the game much more fun in my mind.

I have a couple pre-written lists but sometimes someone wants a game too close to store closing or they don't have enough models and it's a last-minute thing so I whip out a lower-point list at the last minute.

That's just me. I know many people who always make a list right before a game. I don't understand that because I like to take my time and think about the choices, and I also like to play the same list several times to "learn" it. But, I've come to accept that when I get a pickup game I'm going to be rolling terrain and getting my guys out while the other guy is writing his list.

To me, cheating is cheating, whether it's on the rules in-game or on the list beforehand. If I'm pretty sure someone's list is not legit, I usually just put them on my mental list of cheaters and don't play them, unless I know them a bit and then I challenge and base my opinion on their reaction.

As far as i can tell, Army Builder and Quartermaster are more likely to be inaccurate than pencil and paper because many people don't verify the templates with the book ever. I've never trusted the rules or stats in a program and I always look in the army book/BRB for everything. I verify the points in the template and just use the program to do the math and keep my lists archived. I use Quartermaster on an iPad and it's easy to show the list to someone else (or more likely, e-mail a PDF to their phone).

If you want to try something totally different, try list building at deployment. It's a bit slower, but makes for an interesting game.
Both players show up with no list, and as they place units on the table, they record point values and upgrades.
After deployment, anything over a limit is removed by your opponents choice. (ie, if you spend too many on specials, I can wipe out special(s) unit(s) of your until you are under the limit).
The few times we've played in this method, we'll take a break after deployment for lunch and then start the game.

As for showing up with no list, and lores not chosen, it drives me nuts.
-Matt

Your method can only work with "nice" people Matt
Otherwise I'll just place Rat Darts until your whole army is deployed and then I'll start for real with a perfectly tailored list (works even better with naked Warp Engineers)

My local area is all over the place on pts values. I've stopped printing lists because its simply been a waste of paper. Now I just put them together on my phone, and ask my opponent if he would like to see it.

Better for the environment and usually quicker as well. I only print lists for tournaments now.

I allways keep a list handy if im playing a random game.
But thats simply to give to the other player, along with my armies book if they need to read it or to save time later.

Usually my list wont change in 6-8 months or so, so i remember my list off the top of my head, but its more a case of knowing the books inside-out.
Ive had the daemons book for 4 days now, but i can allready quote page numbers for rules/units and can quote any rule i need from it.

But thats simply to make the games run smooth and not have to keep looking things up.
Also helps when i need to chop my list a bit for smaller/doubles games.
Allways nice when i know the cost of each unit and the upgrades

A lot of guys at our store have started putting lists on some sort of iPad app. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but the convenience of being able to access all and any army list you've ever noted down is very handy, and has stopped less people spontaneously creating an army list on the spot, which did used to be a problem.

Magic Lores is still an issue though. No-one seems to be able to get it into their head that you should choose your Lores with your list, not before the game.

I bring lists and play people with one.

I have never actually played a pick up game with someone that had not created a list prior to us meeting.

editing to add:
Both myself and many opponents bring multiple lists - knowing which list is different; rules.
I tend to bring a number of lists and ask my opponent which I should play for the day.